30 IV [1921]

Comrade Trotsky!

I have read Shatunovsky's pamphlet: "White Coal and Revolutionary Petrograd."

Very weak. Declamation and nothing more. Nothing of substance whatsoever.

The only substantive hint: from page 15: "According to the opinion of distinguished specialists—hydraulic engineers—eight months is sufficient for real results of this military feat."

Who is this specialist? There is no such person (I asked Krzhizhanovsky: there is no such person). Shatunovsky undertook to write about what he does not know (Krzhizhanovsky evaluates it thus). Apart from this baseless remark there is nothing in the entire pamphlet.

Let Shatunovsky prove it and give substantive proposals. Otherwise idle chatter will remain idle chatter.

V. Lenin

¹ Ya. Shatunovsky—engineer, member of the RCP(b), for a long time was an active Trotskyist. Shatunovsky's pamphlet "White Coal and Revolutionary Petrograd" concerns the question of the restoration of Petrograd as an industrial center that had fallen into decline. Proposing the use of the energy of the Svir and Volkhov for the electrification of Petrograd's industry, Ya. Shatunovsky put forward what was supposedly a "revolutionary" plan for the restoration of Petrograd, contrary to the GOELRO plan, which Shatunovsky characterized as "peaceful," not revolutionary, asserting at the same time that the GOELRO plan, "calculated for 10 years, may not be realized even in 40 years, and we cannot hold out even 5 years if our production does not become revolutionary." Shatunovsky was a proponent of Trotsky's views, who waged struggle against GOELRO and Lenin's plan for electrification.